Toledo St. Francis captures Ohio high school state championship

It felt like days, not seconds, as the final minutes of the OHSAA state hockey championship game ticked away Sunday.
Toledo St. Francis held a 2-1 lead, but Lakewood St. Edward pushed and pushed. Between icings and freezings of the puck by St. Francis goalie Jackson Smalley, the last few minutes moved at what had to feel like a glacial pace for the leading Knights.
"I've never been more nervous in my life," St. Francis captain Devon Homier admitted. "They were all over us. Just getting the puck out, we were laying our lives on the line out there. It sounds dramatic but it's true. We were doing everything in our power to win that game."
And win it they did. In a tremendously entertaining, evenly matched state title game between the top two ranked teams in Ohio, St. Francis held on to win the final by a 2-1 score at the OhioHealth Ice Haus. The win ends Cleveland St. Ignatius' four-year run atop the state and returns the trophy to northwest Ohio for the first time since St. Francis won it in 2015.

"It's absolutely indescribable," Smalley said afterward. "I can't even put it into words. Honestly, I'm still seeing if I'm about to wake up. I don't even know if this is real or not."
But it was real, with Smalley making 27 saves holding down the cage for the Knights, who never trailed. Homier tallied in the first period and Luc Kuhr scored the title-winning goal midway through the third, while St. Francis leading scorer Riley Box assisted on both Knights goals.
Jack Mansour had the lone tally for St. Edward (26-4-1) early in the third to tie the score, while Evan Wrightsman kept it close with some impressive saves among his 13 stops. But in the end, it was St. Francis (28-3-2) that did just enough to win a tightly contested game.
"I'm just excited for these boys," St. Francis head coach Chris Varga said. "There's no words. I can't even talk right now. I'm just speechless. I'm so excited for these kids."
It was a difficult year for everyone involved with high school hockey, with COVID cases threatening to shut down the season before it started. Varga said every team in the state had to dodge bullets to get games in, with last-minute cancellations common and teams unable to even get access to rinks until moments before games to prevent the potential spread of illness.
Somehow, it all came together, though, with the state tournament moved from the main ice at Nationwide Arena to the Ice Haus at the end. Still, spectators saw high-level hockey throughout, with St. Francis downing Cuyahoga Falls Walsh Jesuit by a 7-2 score in Saturday's semifinal and St. Ed's downing Upper Arlington by a 3-0 score.
Sunday's title game was among the tightest in state history, with both teams trading chances in a physical, spirited affair. Homier got the scoring started with a power-play goal 6:49 into the game, taking a cross-crease feed from Nick Mack and scoring on his forehand past Wrightsman.
But the St. Edward goalie made an incredible save to keep it 1-0 later in the opening frame, diving to his left and going to full extension to stop what looked like a sure rebound goal by St. Francis' Jon Jaros. That save was countered by Smalley in the second period as he made a breakaway stop to deny Noah Schultz to keep St. Francis up 1-0.
The two teams had met twice this year, with St. Francis leading each in the third period before St. Ed's rallied for a tie and a win in the previous meetings, and it looked like history would repeat itself when Mansour tied the score just 1:41 into the third period. Smalley was left down and out as he scrambled to make a save, with Ryan Dunn feeding Mansour at the front of the net to slip the puck home and make it a 1-1 game.
But St. Edward took an offensive zone penalty behind the play minutes later, and Kuhr got the winning goal 12 seconds into the penalty. Kuhr saw a lane from the top of the zone and let go a shot that hit the crossbar, banked off of Wrightsman and went into the net with 9:09 to play.
From there, St. Francis continued to play with pace and kept St. Edward at bay until the final three minutes, when the Eagles threw everything they had at Smalley. It helped that Varga and his staff had spent the last two weeks working with the Knights on how to hold late game leads.
"Believe it or not, we practiced the last two-minute drill," the head coach said. "I always watch football and the last two minutes, I see Brady and Manning, those guys when they come back to win and everything. So this year, (assistant coach Chris) Dyer and I looked at the last few minutes and worked on every possible combination of them pulling the goalie and what we could work on - making sure we had two centermen out there, making sure we knew what to do if we lost a faceoff, what do we do if we win a faceoff."
And as the time finally hit zero, setting off a dogpile that resonated 100 miles northwest, all the work paid off.
"It was the best moment of my life, I have to say," Homier said of the second the sticks and gloves went flying. "To win it all is amazing. I can't explain it."